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Facebook is buying UK’s Bloombury AI to ramp up natural language tech
- mark_l_watson 8y agoThat seems like a small purchase price given both FB’s need for detecting junk content. I would hope that any filtering system would have humans in the loop.
- dogma1138 8y agoLikely an acquihire which also means that their “tech” isn’t that mature yet.
- senatorobama 8y agoWhat's the exit? I'm always interested to see how other people in tech get rich.
- dna_polymerase 8y ago> Multiple sources say Facebook is paying between $23 million and $30 million to acquire Bloomsbury AI, in a deal that will see a mixture of cash and stock change hands. In one scenario, the startup’s investors will receive around $5.5 million, with Bloomsbury’s founding team in line for the remaining $17.5 million, paid in restricted Facebook stock. Either way, this represents a modest return for the bulk of investors, although EF — given that it invests pre-seed — is likely to have had a larger multiple.
- KasianFranks 8y agoThey could have just asked Google.
- amelius 8y agoYeah, in return for the data.
- amelius 8y agoI much prefer this kind of tech being developed in universities, but lately it seems that academia are losing ground to companies in terms of brainpower and sometimes even scientific output.
- YorkshireSeason 8y agoNot surprising, given the extreme salary differences between UK universities and top industry research labs.
- batter 8y agoJust wondering what would be the long term implications for universities.
- Silhouette 8y agoIs there any particular reason why you prefer tech being developed in universities? If the quality of the work being done is good and the results are worthwhile, does it really matter who paid for the room and the lights?
- amelius 8y agoPretty much for every reason tech was more open and less user-hostile in the 80s and 90s. In my opinion, companies should make hardware. Universities may develop tech that touches our data, and companies should stay far, far away from that.
- b_b 8y agoThat should depend on the open-ness of the work, and whether it is accessible by others. Academic research is published in journals for people to read[1], whereas taking the example of Apple, they have a reputation for barely publishing any of their research (although it is improving). [1] Although I acknowledge that there are currently significant barriers to access for many journalistic papers. But research locked away by a company is still far more inaccessible than publishing in a journal like Nature. Edit: formatting
- cafard 8y agoTypo in the headline--should be Bloomsbury.